Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and former Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said Wednesday that even though the state had entrusted Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Bhagwant Mann with a serious responsibility by making him Chief Minister, “unfortunately he continues to believe he is still a comedian”.
In a freewheeling interview to ThePrint, Badal also said that a tie-up between the AAP and the Congress for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections would hit the credibility of both parties and be “good” news for the SAD.
Over the last few days, Mann and Badal have engaged in a volley of personal insults on social media. On this, Badal said that rather than governing Punjab earnestly, Mann seemed more interested in entertaining the public with his “cheap, slapstick and crass jokes”.
“If that is the quality of politics he has stooped down to, then he will get it back in full measure,” Badal said.
On 1 August, Mann tweeted an old picture of a turbanless Sukhbir Badal playing Holi with his son. He accompanied it with a dig in Punjabi: “These days, this man is trying to advocate Sikh issues”.
ਆਹ ਜਨਾਬ ਅੱਜਕੱਲ ਸਿੱਖ ਮਸਲਿਆਂ ਦੇ ਮੁਦਈ ਬਣੇ ਹੋਏ ਨੇ ..ਨਹੀਂਓ ਲੱਭਣੇ ਲਾਲ ਗੁਆਚੇ ਓ ਮਿੱਟੀ ਨਾ ਫਰੋਲ ਜੋਗੀਆ.. pic.twitter.com/0Zj8OKArq2
— Bhagwant Mann (@BhagwantMann) August 1, 2023
Badal retorted by tweeting a video of an apparently inebriated and also turbanless Mann trying to eat food from a plate with limited success.
“These days, the state is in the hands of this man… there is a huge difference between a state and a stage…and if the driver is a drunkard then passengers should take responsibility for their life and belongings,” he wrote.
ਅੱਜ ਕੱਲ ਸਟੇਟ ਇਹਨਾਂ ਦੇ ਹੱਥ ਚ ਆ …..
ਸਟੇਟ ਤੇ ਸਟੇਜ ਚ ਬਹੁਤ ਫ਼ਰਕ ਹੁੰਦਾ।
ਡਰਾਈਵਰ ਹੋਵੇ ਸ਼ਰਾਬੀ ਦਾਰੂ-ਬਾਜ਼..
ਤਾਂ ਸਵਾਰੀ ਆਪਣੀ ਜਾਨ ਤੇ ਸਮਾਨ ਦੀ ਆਪ ਜ਼ਿੰਮੇਵਾਰ। pic.twitter.com/6eytnFDpiY— Sukhbir Singh Badal (@officeofssbadal) August 1, 2023
When asked about this exchange, Badal said that Mann was responsible for taking political discourse to its “lowest ever” level and that he had no choice but to retaliate.
“The picture he picked up could have been of any family in Punjab playing Holi. But he chose it because he doesn’t believe in the concept of family,” Badal said.
“I want to make it clear to him that nobody is going to take it lying down. Two can play at a game and we have only just begun,” he added.
In his interaction with ThePrint, Badal also spoke about his party’s plans for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, his views on the opposition INDIA alliance, and how he thinks a tie-up between the AAP and the Congress at the national level will affect Punjab politics.
Also Read: ‘You have taken on the wrong man’: Punjab CM Mann & Manpreet Badal hurl fresh insults at each other
On NDA and INDIA
The SAD and the BJP were long-time allies until they parted ways in 2020 over the central government’s now-scrapped farm laws.
Is there now a chance for the SAD to patch up with the BJP and join the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year? To this, Badal replied that his party was already in an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
“We are quite happy with our tie-up with the BSP. Why would we need to change anything?” he said.
Badal, however, was more forthcoming when asked about the Congress and other opposition parties coming together at the national level to form INDIA, short for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, ahead of parliamentary polls.
“In politics, one plus one need not always make two. In this case one plus one will add up to half,” he said.
The Congress, he predicted, would be the “biggest loser” in the INDIA alliance and the AAP the greatest gainer.
Explaining his reasoning, he said: “AAP has no presence at the national level. They know that they cannot get even two or three seats in the Lok Sabha. So, they will have some kind of seat arrangement in Delhi and Punjab and in lieu end up increasing their footprints in states where they would have otherwise drawn a nil.”
He added that the other INDIA allies did not realise that AAP was “ultimately going to use them as ladders to climb over them only”.
‘Congress-AAP alliance will expose both in Punjab’
Badal claimed that the optics of Congress and AAP joining hands at the national level would not go down well in Punjab for either party.
“In Punjab, they are expected to have seat-sharing which will lead to both the Congress and AAP losing their credibility. AAP has launched a witch-hunt against Congress leaders and is every day putting them in jail. How will the Congress explain to its cadres that now they have to work in collaboration with AAP?” he asked.
He pointed out that AAP would also have a hard time justifying the tie-up in Punjab.
“AAP’s politics in Punjab has been anti-Congress, and now suddenly they have to campaign together? When parties start taking their cadres for granted, and people as fools… that is when the real downfall begins,” he said.
Badal claimed that the ultimate beneficiary of this situation would be SAD.
“For Akali Dal, a tie-up between AAP and Congress is good news. We not just end up becoming the main opposition party but also benefit from Congress and AAP getting exposed in the eyes of the public,” he said.
‘Complete lack of government in Punjab’
When asked about his party’s main focus in the parliamentary elections, Badal said: “It’s not bad governance by the AAP. Because that would mean that there is some governance. It is the complete lack of a government in Punjab.”
He alleged that Mann and his MLAs worked only when there were cameras around clicking pictures of them.
“This is true not only of the so-called raids, surprise checks, and field visits but also of official meetings. The information that I get from bureaucrats is that the Chief Minister and other ministers sit in meetings as long as the cameras are clicking pictures and once that is over they get up and go,” he claimed.
Last month, SAD leader and former state minister Bikram Singh Majithia had claimed that the AAP government spent Rs 750 crore annually on advertising. He had also urged the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to take suo-moto action against the AAP government.
Badal, too, brought up the “Rs 750 crore” figure.
“When you have a budget of Rs 750 crores annually for the media, then it is clear that your focus is not the development of the state but to ensure that whatever little you actually do is blown out of proportion and projected not only in Punjab but across the country,” he said.
“What justification does Mann have in spending crores of Punjab’s money for advertisements in states which have nothing to do with Punjab?”
Badal also claimed that official funds were being misused in expensive transport.
“Why don’t you try and find out how much money the Punjab government spent on hiring aircraft for the Chief Minister to travel in the past one-and-a-half years? You will be surprised to know that the plane that is hired is one of the most expensive planes that any state government can hire for VIP travel,” he said. “How are they representing aam aadmi or the ordinary man if they do not step out of the plane?”
Badal took a potshot at AAP convenor and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal too.
“The hard-earned money of Punjabis is being misused to pay for the plane that carries Arvind Kejriwal everywhere. In order to show it as a government expenditure, Mann is made to sit in the plane and he has no role to play other than being a conductor of the tour,” he alleged.
Badal also claimed that the AAP’s public stand against corruption was not matched by the actions of its leaders.
“It is a joke that the Aam Aadmi Party is against corruption. Look at the change in the lifestyle of their ministers and MLAs since they came to power (in March 2022). Look at the properties they are buying or dealing in… look at the kind of jewellery that the women folk are flaunting!” he alleged.
“If Kejriwal and Mann think that they have bought over the media and all this can remain hidden forever, they are wrong,” he added. “Nobody remains in power forever and these things will come out one day and then haunt them for the rest of their lives.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Also Read: Together in INDIA, not so in Punjab? State Congress leaders accuse AAP of witch-hunt